[Omniscaper]

I've been trying to get the Defiant and the upcoming Jemhadar Fighter playable but beam turretting has been driving me bananas!

I am trying to tweak the beams so that it can fire beams while limiting their firing time. Upping the power consumption works but the recharge rate is so slow. The "+attenation" command does want to fade out the beams either. I have it set to .5.

What are the optimal settings for playable fighter beam turreting?

Is there any way to adjust the normals on gun points. Specifically the Defiant's pulse phasers could use some adjustment because the four pulse cannons are too spread apart to effectively hit a target smaller than the defiant such as the Jemhadar fighter. I could only hit it with two pulses tops while the other two misses completely. I'd like to have the pulses converge after a certain range.

I currently have them set as "bombers" so I can still have some AI controlled beams and torpedos. What are the limits to the amount or type of turrets?

And FINALLY, Is there anyway I can give a kamikazi  Jemhadar Fighter the ability to detonate on impact? I'd like to recreate the destruction on the USS Odissey.

Any insight or help would speed up my "Sacrifice of Angels" pack release which would include the Miranda, Galor, Jemhadar Fighter and cruiser.

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]Gunpoints on player-flyable ships are automatically set to point forwards. Nothing can be done about that.

For the kamikaze bit, check the 'Kamikaze' box in the 'misc' section of the ship's properties in FRED, change the damage to what you want, then give it the orders to attack the ship you want it to kamikaze. Boom.[/color]

[Omniscaper]

KOOL BEANS!!! I've managed to find a solution to the gunpoint normals by using ModelView to adjust the it. Its a pain to juggle PCS and modelview, when modelview hates high polygon models, but I pervailed. All pulse turrets now converge at a particular range. Or at least it looks that way in game.

Any other suggestions please tell me. I'm gonna try orchestrating the ill-fated mission of the USS Odessey in the Gamma quadrant, hee hee. I hope that bugship makes a spectacular pyrotechnic display. I'll post images if successfull.

[Flipside]

Omni, talk to Vasudan Admiral, he has a high poly tolerant version of MV that he made. It might help later

[Odyssey]

[color=cc9900]Weird... I was under the impression that FS2 locked gunpoint normals as forwards. Is that an SCP change?[/color]

[Nico]

No, I think omniscaper is high

[Omniscaper]

High!? Nah, no mushrooms anywhere here!!! =)

Modelview seems allow gunpoint normal changes. I'm testing right now for extreme changes. I'll keep you folks posted.

Since we're in the topic of discovery, has anyone experimented with ANIMATED background images. I'm playing around with an animated planetary texture, homebrewed with 3dsmax. I'm hoping to make an earth orbit  background similiar to the final mission in the B5-project "In the Beginning" campaign. With animated cloud churn and movement. If anyone has experience in filling the sperical environment vs B5-Project's large flat plane method, please give me some poiters. I got a loveley animated texture waiting to be applied on either possibility.

[kasperl]

in the SCP, you can use animated .ani backgrounds.

[Trivial Psychic]

As far as the non-converging turret problem, I had an idea, though i'm not sure if its necessary now.  I noticed when looking over the model, the pulse cannon mounts existed as both conventional primary mounts, as well as in the form of turrets.  I thought that if you give each of the cannon turrets a field of fire that can merge at a certain distance, then the convergance could be variable and change depending on the range of the target.  Then all a FREDer has to do is leave those turrets blank when selecting a player ship, or leave the primary bays blank when selecting the ship as an AI controled ship.  The only downside I can see with this idea, would be the fact that the cannon turrets wouldn't necessary fire at the same time.

Later!

[Omniscaper]

I thought the same thing. I gues converging pulses will be limited to AI in that case. In the case of player controlled, I would assume the public would rather keep the control of those pulses manual. It is just frustrating trying to hit a a small fighter with those cannons. The only way to score a hit is to manually use the forward phaser or angle the attack to face the bridge section for AI controlled aaa beams to fire. Oh well, more gain than loss meesa thinks.

Another question, what is the deal with damage textures? I followed the revised readme and put the damage decals command at the bottom of the weapons TBL. Still no show. Help!!!

One playable optimized Defiant on its way......

[kasperl]

damage decals have been disabled because the ate up the framerate, IIRC, AFAIK. talk to bob

[Omniscaper]

bummer

[magatsu1]

Special explosions, damage inflicted and kamakazie orders can all be set in FRED2 for single missons.

Odyssey ? Is that the (Galaxy?) TNG style ship which got nailed by a kamakazie in the nacelle ?

That was by far the best piece of Sci-Fi space action I have ever seen. I can still remember it now.